David Sepulveda Photos
Mark Oppenheimer.
How do you get your kid into the magnet school down the block? Westville author Mark Oppenheimer, who lives within paper-airplane-flying distance of Edgewood School, set out in search of answers, then blogged the results:
This post will only be of interest to New Haveners with public-school-age children. So, I address you:
Like me, many of you have questions about who exactly gets into the magnet schools, what “neighborhood preference” means, etc. I called the central office with these questions — the number for recruitment is (203) 946‑7415. I was told to ask for Debbie Breland, the NHPS recruitment coordinator. On Jan. 31, 2011, at about 1:45 p.m. when I called, she was not available, but I spoke with “Tabitha,” who was extremely helpful. Here is how our conversation went [I have interspersed some of my own notes in brackets]:
MO: Does neighborhood or sibling preference mean you get in?
T: It is still not definite, they are given priority in the lottery. They are done first in the lottery. They do the neighborhood first, sibling preference second, and everyone else after.
MO: I live on West Rock Avenue. If my daughter does not get into Edgewood, what school does she go to?
T:
We would place her as close as possible as we could to one of the non-magnet schools. There is no way to know what the enrollment is going to be when we start on May 2, so no way to predict that. It depends on where there is room, as close to your house as possible. It is basically first-come, first-serve for the neighborhood schools. Hooker and Nathan Hale are a big deal, so they fill up.
[Note from MO: Tabitha then went on to explain to me that for neighborhood schools, in other words non-magnet schools, everything is first-come, first-serve, based on waiting in line. So I asked…]
MO: So it favors people who can take days off work to wait in line?
T: I don’t know if you say favors, but if there are 56 spots available in a given school, whoever is next in line, that is how it works.
[Note from MO: This seems like madness, making people wait in line. Why don’t they do the neighborhood schools, like Hooker, the same way they do the magnet schools — with a lottery. The only difference would be that only neighborhood kids could enter the lottery. Or think of how rock concert ticket lines sometimes do it — you have to be on line, but they hand our random numbers to people on the line, and the numbers determine the order in which you buy. Either of those would be better than actually using the order of people in line, which clearly favors those who have the time — and money — to take time off to wait in line.]
MO: For the magnet schools, if you put down only one choice, and don’t get it, do you get put on the waiting list?
T: Yes.
MO: If you put down three choices, and get your second, do you get put on the waiting list for the first?
T: You are not wait-listed for the first one then. If you have your mind set on a particular school, that’s your call.
[Note from MO: This was confirmed by the principal of Edgewood School when she was asked the same question at an open house last week. If there is only one magnet school you would send your kid to, then only put that one down in the lottery. Do not put a second choice. Because if you put a second choice, and get slotted into that one, you will NOT get put on the waiting list for the first. Whereas if you just put the first, you’ll at least end up on the waiting list.]
MO: Why are there people living in Westville whose kids go to Hooker, which is supposed to be a neighborhood school?
T: If your child is registered in one of our public schools, there is something we do around October that is considered an out of district request, apply for a transfer to a school that is not in your neighborhood. The other possible way is School of Choice. No Child Left Behind means that if your child is at one of the low-performing schools in August, parents are sent a letter, where a child in a low-performing schools can apply to one of the higher-performing schools. If there is space available in those grades, that is another possibility of how they got in. But you would have to be registered in one of the low-performing schools already.
MO:
If your child is home-schooled or private-schooled for Kindergarten, can he or she still get neighborhood/sibling preference when applying to Edgewood for 1st grade?’
T: Yes, that wouldn’t change. She would get neighborhood preference.
[Note from MO: But there are far fewer spots in 1st and 2nd grade, etc. So if you home- or private-school for Kindergarten, then try to move your child to a magnet school for 1st grade, your child will still get neighborhood preference if you live in the neighborhood, but she may be competing against five kids for only three spots. Whereas if you enter in Kindergarten, there are 52 spots, so your odds are better. ]
[Note from MO: On Feb. 14, I called Debbie Breland to ask one final question. This time I did get to speak to Ms. Breland. Here I should note that both she and Tabitha were extremely helpful and professional, and made me feel good about the NHPS. Here is how that last conversation went:]
MO: I am confused about what “neighborhood preference” at a magnet school means. Does it mean that all the neighborhood kids get in before ANY kid from out of the attendant zone does? In other words, if there are 52 spots, and 49 neighborhood kids, do ALL 49 neighborhood kids get in, and then they let in 3 kids from other neighborhoods?
DB: Yes, that’s right. All the neighborhood kids get spots first. Then kids from out of the neighborhood who have a sibling at the school. Then other kids from out of the attendant zone [neighborhood].
MO: So at magnet schools they don’t hold back a certain percentage of spots for kids from other neighborhoods?
DB: No.
[Note from MO: This confused me. Because if this is true, then in what sense are the magnet schools with neighborhood preference really magnet schools? The point of magnet schools was to get a mix of kids from different neighborhoods, ethnicities, backgrounds. But if these schools don’t require a certain mix of neighborhood and non-neighborhood, then basically they are just like neighborhood schools: all the neighborhood kids get in first, then if there’s room other kids can get in. So I asked Ms. Breland about this. She said:]
DB: The difference is there is a lottery for magnet schools. But the neighborhood schools are first-come, first-serve.
[Note from MO: But that doesn’t really make much difference if ALL the neighborhood kids are taken first in the lottery.
In any event, there you have it. I am grateful to Tabitha and Debbie Breland for their extremely helpful, candid answers. And to Bonnie Pachesa, principal of Edgewood, who was extremely helpful in the open house I attended last week. So far, my dealings with NHPS have only made me more optimistic about my daughters’ potential experiences in our city schools.]
First, the open-choice system ought to be totally transparent. NHPS ought to hold a public lottery so that all applicants can see that the process is fair. Historically it hasn't been. There are far too many "lucky" politicians and cronies who seem to get their own kids into the best schools.
Second, those New Haveners that are stuck with one option - a failing school, ought to stage a protest until they are provided a high quality school option for their child.
Need help with this? Contact any of the organizations below:
http://connecticut.baeo.org/
http://www.teachourchildren.org/
http://www.conncan.org/